Our book club recently discussed Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street, which is a serial that originally appeared in the Scotsman, a daily paper in Edinburgh. Smith wrote 110 brief installments that describe the doings of some quirky characters living in or around a boarding house in that city. Friendship, romantic longing, mystery, and the mild sort of mayhem found only in the United Kingdom (What does happen when a Scotsman doesn't wear anything under his kilt?) abound.<!--break--> In the Preface to the resulting book, Smith describes the writerly dedication he had to maintain to keep each installment of the serial brief and engaging while also keeping the larger "arc of the story" in mind. More to the point, perhaps, is that Smith had to keep himself interested in the world he created while also drawing in dedicated readers who could not wait to see what the next edition of the Scotsman would bring to the inhabitants of 44 Scotland Street and its environs. If you want a pleasant, undemanding diversionary reading, I recommend the book highly.

While walking our dogs one morning, my wife pointed out an obvious quality of the book I had not considered: Smith's serialization illustrates a terrific writing technique, one that any would-be writer, especially a student, of course, could emulate. Write a little every day in order to work toward a finished piece of writing (e.g., research paper, essay, short story). Like Smith, students (really, any of us who want to write well) should learn the virtue of writing a little at a time in well-spaced and paced sessions. Steady effort pays off in the form of more and better quality prose (see the terrific research on this fact by psychologist Robert Boice) than does any pressured, at the last possible moment, banged-out all-nighter paper. (I realize some of you don't believe me---you may well think that you need such pressure to "find your muse"---well, you're quite wrong---see Boice's work).

I emphasize the importance of writing to my students in all my classes. In fact, I believe that writing is really the most important skill (perhaps coupled with reading critically) that undergraduate students learn during their college years. Yes, I think it is much more important than work done in the college major, even the psychology major. I don't thing this sort of statement is at all treasonous, rather, I sincerely believe that writing complements the knowledge students gain about psychology as a discipline in the course of their studies. In any case, most of us who teach want our psychology students to be able to communicate what they know about mind and behavior.

So, here is advice I routinely give to my psychology students about writing:

Setting. To write well, having an established routine matters. Part of that routine is picking a place to work, one not subject to noise or distraction (I am never convinced by people who tell me their best work is banged out in busy coffee bars while chatting amiably with the barista). Pick a quiet, familiar, low trafficked place, such as an out of the way carrel in a library, a dorm room when everyone else is still asleep or at class (early in the morning is ideal on both counts), anyplace where you can think and write in peace. No visitors allowed. And no rewards ("I'll just break for a cup of tea") until you have generated some predetermined amount of text.

Set aside some dedicated writing time everyday. Many students never feel ready to write. One reason is that they are not used to writing; that is, they have no practice. As more than one writer has argued, writing is like exercising a muscle-the more exercise the better. Like Smith, a budding writer needs to have dedicated time everyday (preferably the same time) for work. To start, 15 mins is fine. With time, you can stretch it to an hour or more. Remember: Writing is supposed to be something you do all the time, so it need not take up the day-it should be more like reading for class. Do a little each day before the next class meeting instead of cramming it all in during a marathon.

Connection. Once daily a writing regiment is established, you need to have a way to get back into the work at the start of every session. Smith had a storyline to continue. Although he may well have had a plan for his characters, we can reasonably imagine he reread the previous day's installment before starting. The best academic writers (and I am including students here) reread and edit what they wrote previously-whether it's a few paragraphs or 15 pages-in order to reconnect with their previous thoughts. I always print out a hard copy of whatever I'm working on and mark it up from top to bottom. As I subsequently type the changes into the computer file I am able to get "back inside" the work.

How much to write at one sitting? As much as you can without falling prey to binge-writing. Some of the best professional writers I know say 2 or 3 good pages at a sitting are ideal. That's actually quite a bit. For students, I would think a page or two at one sitting is great (the assumption being that those and all other pages will be revised and (re) edited at start of every subsequent writing session.

Reward. Although I think a good piece of writing should be its own reward, I understand that many of us want something beyond the joys of intrinsic motivation. So, I tell my students that if they finish a writing assignment on time (or better yet, early!) then they can reward themselves by meeting a friend for coffee, playing a video game, watching a favored TV show, whatever. The only condition I put on it is that they have to get back to the desk again for a writing session again the next day.

The mid-point of medical residency is probably the bleakest point in medical training. The daily grind of death and disease wears young doctors down, and the end of residency seems impossibly far off. In the second year of my residency at Bellevue Hospital, I began taking dance class at the Martha Graham studio in Manhattan. It turned out to be an unexpectedly visceral lifesaver for me.

Here is an excerpt from the essay, “Pas de Deux,” which appears in the new anthology from “Becoming a Doctor,” edited by Lee Gutkind.  (Norton, 2010.)

“One day, after a long night in the ICU, I rushed straight to dance class, leotards under my scrubs.  I had spent the bulk of my last thirty hours with Nilsa, a young woman dying of HIV. Nilsa’s body was ravaged by bacterial, viral and fungal infections.  The body cavities that weren’t drowning in their own fluids were hemorrhaging blood.  Her temperature never dipped below 103°.  The breathing machine provided oxygen in exchange for her tuberculosis-laden breaths. I injected sedatives when she convulsed, her water-logged lungs laboring to absorb more oxygen.  The nurse and I arranged icepacks around her burning skin, but they melted rapidly.  Her death was slow and brutal.  Her mother, two brothers, and aunt sat with her, weeping into their protective respiratory masks.

I limped out of the hospital after signing Nilsa’s death certificate.  There were so many infections that I couldn’t decide which one to write for “immediate cause of death.”  My sleep-starved body longed for bed, but my aching soul dragged my protesting limbs to East 63rd Street. 

We were doing the plié-relevé series, a set of exercises that I have always found particularly beautiful.  There is one point, in fifth position, in which the drama builds until the climax occurs with just one simple motion: a 90° twist of the body while lifting into a relevé, one arm scooping an arc into the sky.  In one brief, but compelling, moment, the whole class rises into the air as a single being, sweeping its focus from the one corner of the room to the other.  Physically subtle, yet emotionally dramatic, almost more so for the understatement of the movement. 

…I look back now and realize that it was the continual infusion of the aesthetics of dance that helped keep me alive throughout those draining years. After each daily dose of agony and suffering, I needed not only to witness beauty, but to participate in beauty. I was well aware that I couldn’t possibly approach the feats of the advanced dancers, but that turned out not to matter at all. It was enough just to be a bit player in that world, to be a miniscule stitch in that weave of beauty.”

Reprinted from “Pas de Deux” by Danielle Ofri, from “Becoming a Doctor,” Gutkind, L., ed. ©Norton, 2010.

**************************

Danielle Ofri is a writer and practicing internist at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. She is the editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her newest book is Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients.

View the YouTube book trailer.

You can follow Danielle on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her homepage.